The Mysteries of Udolpho

Meanwhile the carriers, having come to a landing-place, stopped to rest,

and the travellers being seated on the point of a cliff, Montoni and

Cavigni renewed a dispute concerning Hannibal's passage over the Alps,

Montoni contending that he entered Italy by way of Mount Cenis, and

Cavigni, that he passed over Mount St. Bernard. The subject brought

to Emily's imagination the disasters he had suffered in this bold and

perilous adventure. She saw his vast armies winding among the defiles,

and over the tremendous cliffs of the mountains, which at night were

lighted up by his fires, or by the torches which he caused to be carried

when he pursued his indefatigable march. In the eye of fancy, she

perceived the gleam of arms through the duskiness of night, the glitter

of spears and helmets, and the banners floating dimly on the twilight;

while now and then the blast of a distant trumpet echoed along the

defile, and the signal was answered by a momentary clash of arms. She

looked with horror upon the mountaineers, perched on the higher cliffs,

assailing the troops below with broken fragments of the mountain; on

soldiers and elephants tumbling headlong down the lower precipices; and,

as she listened to the rebounding rocks, that followed their fall,

the terrors of fancy yielded to those of reality, and she shuddered to

behold herself on the dizzy height, whence she had pictured the descent

of others.

Madame Montoni, meantime, as she looked upon Italy, was contemplating in

imagination the splendour of palaces and the grandeur of castles, such

as she believed she was going to be mistress of at Venice and in the

Apennine, and she became, in idea, little less than a princess. Being

no longer under the alarms which had deterred her from giving

entertainments to the beauties of Tholouse, whom Montoni had mentioned

with more eclat to his own vanity than credit to their discretion, or

regard to truth, she determined to give concerts, though she had neither

ear nor taste for music; conversazioni, though she had no talents for

conversation; and to outvie, if possible, in the gaieties of her parties

and the magnificence of her liveries, all the noblesse of Venice. This

blissful reverie was somewhat obscured, when she recollected the Signor,

her husband, who, though he was not averse to the profit which sometimes

results from such parties, had always shewn a contempt of the frivolous

parade that sometimes attends them; till she considered that his pride

might be gratified by displaying, among his own friends, in his native

city, the wealth which he had neglected in France; and she courted again

the splendid illusions that had charmed her before.